


Run Rabbit Run

by saavik13



Category: Foyle's War
Genre: Adultery, Divorce, F/M, alternative ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-05-18 11:44:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5927155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saavik13/pseuds/saavik13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's options were limited and she'd done the best she could with the circumstances afforded her.  Or so she comforted herself when it really all was too much.  Too much time alone, too many campaign dinners, too many pats on the head, and too little of everything else.  Mr. Foyle as usual sees right through her attempts to appear her old self and Sam just doesn't have the energy to pretend, not with him.  She never really has.<br/>Goes AU when Foyle returns from America.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Friday

**Author's Note:**

> On the farm, every Friday  
> On the farm, it's rabbit pie day.  
> So, every Friday that ever comes along,  
> I get up early and sing this little song
> 
> Run rabbit – run rabbit – Run! Run! Run!  
> Run rabbit – run rabbit – Run! Run! Run!  
> Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!  
> Goes the farmer's gun.  
> Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run.
> 
> Run rabbit – run rabbit – Run! Run! Run!  
> Don't give the farmer his fun! Fun! Fun!  
> He'll get by  
> Without his rabbit pie  
> So run rabbit – run rabbit – Run! Run! Run! 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXmk8dbFv_o

Sam looked so utterly devastated, so fragile, that Christopher Foyle wanted nothing more than to pack her away and hide her from the world and whatever it was in it that had hurt her. She was being so calm it was unnerving, but he’d known her for long enough he could read her eyes. Sam was exceedingly unhappy and her inability to discuss it was both new and alarming. He was used to Sam chattering on about anything and everything that crossed her mind. To find her silent was a new level of unpleasantness that rivaled any he’d seen in the war.

People grow up – he reminded himself. War, marriage- Sam wasn’t the same young bright thing that had first bounced up to him in Hastings eager and ready to please in her new post. Time and adversity had worn her down into something sharper – something far more dangerous than she had been. The reserve she displayed now, the maturity in the tilt of her head – these were natural and good things he supposed. He couldn’t expect her to stay the bubbly youth forever.

Yet it was more than simple maturity that caused the changes he was seeing. Sam’s explanation, haltingly, of her struggles to conceive could explain it. Perhaps if he’d not known her quite so well – if he’d not watched her so closely for all their war years he’d have believed it.

“Sam,” he said gently. “I know that must be part of it, but please what is really going on?” He shook his head sadly. “You look as if you’ve been ill. Is rationing in the city that bad?”

“Worse actually. Not a good jam in the entire city.” Sam sighed dramatically while looking around carefully to make sure they aren’t being overheard. “But that isn’t all- you are right.” She looked down and away, worrying her bottom lip. “Things just aren’t what I expected I suppose.”

“How so?”

“I miss Hasting.” Sam admitted, shyly, but with water gathering in alarming fashion in the corner of her eyes. “And this life, I… I don’t think I was quite made for it, sir.” She twisted her wedding ring nervously, half pulling it off her far too thin finger before shoving it angrily back into place. “I feel like I’m drowning all the time. As if no matter what I do I can’t reach air.” Sam took a shaky breath, swallowing thickly at the end of it. “I want to be a good wife, I do. But standing in lines, knitting socks, tidying up – I need more than that and working for the professor it’s something but it’s not important, not like driving you was, and I’m so dreadfully bored. It’s all really rather dull and, oh it’s horrible of me but sometimes I wish I was just back in the war.” Sam was flushed when she finished, embarrassed at her admission, and she looked away again as if expecting condemnation.

“I don’t see how wanting to make a difference in the world makes you a bad wife, Sam.” He answered her honestly, like he always did, and some of his confusion must shown because she gave him that half smile she reserved for times she thinks he’s being obtuse or old fashioned. “The two are not mutually exclusive you know.”

“Adam is running for office.” Sam explained with a weary drop of her shoulders. “Everything must be all lined up, including me, and sir you know how I don’t line up well.” Sam smiled ruefully. “My shoes never are shined to regulation, and I’d much rather be gallivanting off with you in a beaten down Wolseley than serving tea to a pack of nattering labor party tuffs.” Once she started going it seemed some of the old Sam returned and she fairly growled at her cup. “As if we have tea to spare enough to serve to strangers.”

Their table was empty now of its meager contents but neither seemed in a hurry to leave. The waiter wasn’t in a rush to send them out either, no customers lined up waiting for a table at that hour, and Foyle relaxed slightly as Sam continued to rant for several minutes about the vulgarities of playing wife to a would be politician.

“To make it worse it’s my check we live off of, which is well and good if I was given any credit for it. But no! I’m still the one in the bread line and he wanders in expecting his supper as if I didn’t just spend the day catering to another idiot man and then foraging for his dinner in empty markets with packs of angry half starved women scrambling for every ounce of bacon and willing to cut you down for it. And I’m paid far less than a man would be and I’m expected to be grateful for even that.” Sam crossed her arms and glared at nothing in particular. “I thought there would at least be compensations for the entire marriage package yet I’m stuck with the work and nothing else.”

“Compensations?” he asked, thinking she must mean support at home and when she blushed red he realized what exactly she’d been glaring _about_.

He’d known enough frustrated women he should have recognized it. He wondered if that wasn’t the real reason they haven’t been able to conceive and blushed himself thinking about it.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” Sam deflated slightly. “I’m just wound a little tighter than normal, I apologize.”

“Nothing to apologize for, Sam.” He insisted. “I said I was here to listen. I’m not one to judge.” No he wasn’t, he thought, glad Sam didn’t have to know all the things he’s not particularly proud of in his life. “I realize it’s probably not a topic you wish to discuss with me of all people, but if I’d advice to help…” he didn’t particularly like the idea of helping another man please Sam, but she looked so dreadfully miserable if he could offer some smidgen of relationship advice that might help her look a little less desolate he would.

“I just thought…” Sam struggled with what to say, weighing propriety over the possibility of actually airing her frustrations at long last. In the end her natural tendency to bluntness won. “I thought I’d enjoy it; that it would be enjoyable. Everyone always seemed to talk it up so much that I assumed there would be something to it all. But I find I’m so disinterested I end up writing out grocery lists in my head just waiting for it to be over.” She slumped in her chair as she finished, a defeated and bitter tilt to her mouth. “If I didn’t want a child so I’d have just written it all off ages ago. Heaven knows Adam isn’t chomping at the bit either. He says my lack of enthusiasm is catching.”

Foyle chewed his lip trying to think of what to say, trying not to launch himself from the table and find Adam to throttle him. There was no way that Sam Stewart could possibly be a frigid woman – any idiot could see that from five minutes with her. No, whatever the matter was it couldn’t be the magnificent woman he’d had the pleasure of knowing for the last several years, who was sitting across from him brimming with frustration and anger and only a small hint of guilt. No – Adam was the defective party and he couldn’t help narrowing his eyes angrily.

“What?” Sam asked, slightly startled by his expression. “I’m sorry if I said too much…”

“Do not apologize.” He cut her off gruffly, grabbing up his hat with one hand and reaching for her with the other. “Lets move this conversation somewhere less likely to be overheard.”

He ushered her out of the building and onto the nearly empty street. They walked for a few blocks before he calmed enough to answer. “Sam, I…” he lost his sentence. He shook his head as they stopped outside a bent and twisted gate, the bombed out church behind it a blackened husk against the rest of the blighted neighborhood.  
  
‘Even the place he’s taken her to live is dank and desolate’, Foyle thought and he wished he’d said something when she agreed to marry the pansy in the first place.

Sam seemed to understand something of what he must be feeling because she pushed open the bent gate and led him into what was left of the nave without saying a word. It must have been beautiful once but now the simple stone arches were haunting with the grey sky showing through them. The benches were almost all still in place and she walked to one and sat as if there was a service about to start. He moved to her side, his natural inclination to sit beside her again, and it was only after they sat there for several long moments he tried again to speak.

“Sam, believe me, it shouldn’t be like that.” Foyle took off his hat and ran a shaky hand through his thinning hair. “It ought to be magnificent and magical and very consuming. You haven’t been married much over a year – it should all still be fascinatingly new.”

Sam looked impossibly older, as if that year had aged her ten, and she dropped her head, her shoulders folding in on herself. “What am I doing wrong? What do I do?”

“What do you want to do?” He asked, softly, risking a gentle hand on her shoulder. She seemed to melt into it, leaning closer to him yet not moving from her place and he ached that she felt so touched starved she’d gravitate to him like that.

“I want to go home.” She whispered, eyes shut tightly. “I want to smell the sea and clean oil out from my nails and get sand in my shoes.” She shook her head and tried to stifle tears but they seemed to have a mind of their own and in great shaking sobs she started to cry.

She was warm in his arms when he pulled her in and the agency could be damned – he’d not stay there one moment longer than the minimum of duty demanded. He’d had a mind to get her a position there if she’d wanted it- something to escape what he was sure she found a boring job as a secretary –but there was a new goal now, to get her away from London. Hastings may not be as exciting as this world of espionage they seem to be involved in but it’s at least familiar – it’s safe. London seems even more harsh and lifeless than it did even during the war.

“I should have taken you to America with me.” He lamented softly as her crying started to weaken. “I should never have kept my peace. I never liked the bastard.”

She laughed weakly into his shoulder and when she pulled back she smiled forlornly. “He’s not a bad man, sir. He’s just… I’m just not his priority. Which I suppose is good if he manages to win an election. He’s more of the people than of one person- never a bad trait in a member of parliament I suppose.”

“I would never vote for a man that neglects his wife’s _needs_.” He emphasized the last word with a significant look and Sam just shook her head sadly.

“I don’t even know what they are.” She admitted, looking younger again suddenly. “I’d never let it go very far, too worried about all the stories you see, didn’t want to end up PWP.” She smiled grimly. “Perhaps I just… imagined more than reality could deliver.”

“Not possible.” He argued, looking grim. “Sam, believe me – what you described it’s not… it’s not how it is supposed to be. It should, he should, make you feel… incredible.” He ended lamely, not knowing how to describe the calumniation of a proper marriage bed. Instead he switched to the only thing he could offer. “You do not have to stay here.” He said it with seriousness, offering her an out he knew she didn’t think she had. Her parents would say that marriage is forever – a convent before God. But he’s seen enough unhappy marriages he doesn’t see much point in making two people miserable when there are perfectly good divorces to be had. In fact, he’d have had a much quieter career if more people had just done the sane thing.

“I haven’t anywhere to go.” She admitted. “I may earn the checks but it’s his name on the bank accounts. And it’s never enough to save more than a few pounds.”

“My spare room is yours if you’d like it.” He offered, “no rent if you do your half of the dishes.”

She smiled grimly. “I can’t just move in with you – what would people think?”

“To hell with people.” He meant it, firmly. He’s retired now and they can’t very well take his pension over something like this. “Mouths wag constantly in Hastings. At least this would give them something a little more entertaining to go on about.”

“They’d assume you’ve made off with me.” Sam joked, poking him in the side with her elbow. “Made me terribly dishonest promises.”

“I’m an old man – they’d be fools.”

“You are not old.” Sam argued softly but earnestly. “I’d probably fall for those promises too.” She looked started after she said it, blushing, but she didn’t look away and she didn’t take it back.

His heart hammered somewhat alarmingly in his chest. Almost against his will he heard himself answer, “I’m very tempted to make them, Sam.”

She licked her lips. “Why don’t you?”

“Because you deserve so much more than I can offer.” He stated truthfully. “I want you to be happy, Sam. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“I’m happiest with you.” She admitted, eyes brighter than he’d seen them since his return. “I never thought you’d consider it.”

“I shouldn’t.” He wanted so badly to touch her. “But I cannot abide that sad look on you, Sam. I simply can’t stand it.”

“When this case is over, when I’m cleared,” she blushed scarlet but continued, her voice as firm as her resolve. “Will you show me what I’ve missed?”

“I’ve half a mind to start this instant.” He confessed and she smiled.


	2. Saturday

Of course they didn’t - not in a bombed out church. And as the case progressed it became clear exactly how much they both were needed in London. It chaffed, not being able to return them to Hastings and the quiet of his peaceful home. Worse, it became clear that if Sam was to keep the job she so clearly wanted at the agency she couldn’t up and leave her husband – at least not right away. There were moral codes and rules and while they might look the other way for the men it was very clear the women were held to a much higher standard. It chaffed – bitterly – but what other option was there that kept Sam happy?

He’d had an affair with one married woman in his youth – he’d sworn never to do so again. Yet, there he was in a rented room staring at Sam and fully intending to ravish her.

She looked nervous, going there for the express purpose of committing a sin. There wasn’t any pretense about it. The apartment he’d been able to rent for his stay in London was only a single room with a small attached facility that if not luxurious was at least private. There was a small stove and sink on one side – the bed on the other. Just a plain wood table with two chairs and a dresser to complete the meager furniture. It wasn’t comfortable or grand and he’d wanted to lay her back on silks and velvet instead of the worn wool of the blankets. But they’d discussed their options in whispers, and his rooms had been better than waiting – better than her marriage bed, and so they found themselves without pretense staring at one another.

She’d said she had to work late.  
He’d said he’d had personal business and left early.

It wasn’t even dark out. 

They hadn’t even kissed yet.

Her lips were soft, slightly hesitant, so unlike Sam at first. She was so unsure of herself, where she could place her hands, and he had to gently encourage her before she opened to him enough he could dip his tongue in to run along her teeth. When her arms went to clutch at his coat she shuddered and pulled away with a muttered apology.

“What for?” He asked gently, soothing his hands over her arms. 

“I was being too forward.” She whispered and his heart clenched.

“Sam, you _are_ allowed to touch me. This would be rather difficult if you weren’t.” He kissed her forehead and then her ear, nibbling down her neck as he pulled her arms back up to his chest. “You are allowed to touch, and taste, and explore…” he demonstrated his point by placing a wet mouthed kiss to the hollow of her throat. “It’s natural.”

She shuddered in his arms before her small hands inched inside his jacket to explore his chest and sides over his shirt. She made a tiny moan, biting her lip to try and stifle it as he nibbled at her ear. “No one will care, Sam. Be as loud as you like. It’s the top floor and I’ve only one neighbor and he’s half deaf.” He whispered and her knees nearly gave out.

On the rare occasions when he let himself imagine what taking her to bed might be like he’d always thought she’d be an energetic thing- giggles and squirms and too much teeth. Instead she was hesitant, shy, and if he hadn’t known better he’d have taken her for a virgin the way she seemed so frightened of touching him. She was desperate, vibrating with need, but so full of anxiety she was nothing more than a trembling pliable mass. 

Not that he didn’t like her trembling with need and letting him do whatever he liked – he’d just have preferred her to not look like a scared rabbit while it was happening. 

Her slip was clean and well mended if old – he suspected it was either second hand or she’d had it since before the war. The lace was a little tattered on the edges and he wished the entire German army to hell for making such a lovely young woman have to settle for such a thing. Knowing Sam it had to be her best one, she’d have worn the very best she owned for this because that is the kind of thing Sam would think was important. He couldn’t care in the slightest, but she would and perhaps that’s adding to her fears.

She was tiny, so terribly thin, he could feel each rib through the smooth cloth. She’d mostly lost her battle with being silent and petite desperate cries were falling from her like tear drops, each one muffled into his shoulder or her bitten lip and he delighted in them. Somehow knowing she was trying so hard to keep them at bay made him crave them even more. 

He couldn’t stop kissing her. Every time he kissed her, she relaxed just a fraction more, and he’d kiss her till dawn if he must, anything to keep her head from making her doubt herself and pull back again. He wanted her to forget herself, just for a while, and to enjoy this while they could.

They were both mostly still clothed. Only his jacket and her outer layer were pealed away but he guided her back to the bed anyway. It was easer to reach under the slip and ease her knickers down that way and he was carful to get the elastic over the clasps on her stockings. He’d a thing for stockings – wanted to have them framing his head when he tasted her but first he brushed his fingers through her curls looking for something to help her.

Sam looked surprised when he touched her there – her eyes went larger and even though she opened her legs for him he could tell she was confused. His hadn’t even touched his trousers and her eyes flickered down to him in question. He smiled, and kissed her, and his hand kept exploring that heated damp place, getting to know it before his eyes. He saw it, the moment she stopped trying to think about it, and he leaned over to pull one silk covered nipple into his mouth just as his thumb twirled around that little sweet bump and his fingers slipped into her. 

She cried out and arched off the bed, pressing her breast and her mound into him and he cupped her back with his free hand to hold her up. She was so light in his arms, so tiny, so impossibly tiny. Rosalind had been a larger woman, all Romanesque curves and full hips. Sam felt like a feather next to what he remembered of his late wife, an unhealthy feather if still devastatingly beautiful, and he vowed to get her jam at any price.

She was so terribly wet, the poor girl, and so shocked by what he was doing. He couldn’t stop whispering endearments in her ear as he touched her, spreading all of her copious slickness over her folds, kneading into the cream of her thighs. For all he held his tongue in public he’d always been quite vocal in his bedroom and he knew the reversal in roles was probably something Sam would have to get used to, along with allowing herself pleasure apparently. 

He wanted to taste her – wanted to slick his fingers and feed them to her pert little mouth, watch her lick her own juices off his rough calluses, but Sam wasn’t ready for something so shocking – not this time – not when just his gentle exploration was causing her to look so shattered. 

He worked the silk slip off her, careful to drag it up and off her body with his dry hand. They hadn’t time to wash it and she couldn’t go home smelling so strongly of her own arousal without rising suspicions of something. 

Her breasts were small and perfect, pert little mounds tipped with candy pink nipples that were hard and wrinkled for want of attention. She was naked now except for her stockings and belt and he kissed her long and hard before he pulled back to get the best view of her.

Her time in the city took what little meat she had off her bones, giving her skin a rather pale grey tint even the flush of her arousal can’t dispel. She needed the sea air, real eggs- country ham and a good pound of potatoes and he swore he’ll get them for her if he had to drive all the way back to Hastings himself and call in all his last favors. But even so she was beautiful and he told her that, admiring her as openly as he could, letting her see his appreciation in his eyes.

Sam was smiling, so some of what he was trying to say without words must have been on his face, and he was glad when she reached up for him. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him, afraid to ask for what she needed, afraid to show him. He wanted Sam to remember that wild part of herself that he fell in love with, quite accidently, when she was just a wisp of a girl in a too brown uniform. 

He wanted to lavish every inch of her, but they only had a few hours and he had to prioritize. The reddish curls between her thighs were glistening with her arousal and he buried his nose in them, holding her hips down as he kissed his way over her mound and to that glorious dampness that still slicked his fingers. Sam gasped as he kissed her there, open mouthed and greedy, and her legs alternated from trying to close to falling open as he started to taste her. It didn’t take long – only a few heavily moments, before she was clutching the sheets and arching back, his tongue bathed in her juices as she shuddered through her first orgasm.

He undressed quickly while Sam came down and somehow managed to maneuver them under the now damp blankets. Her tiny hands were all over him, touching any skin she could find, her eyes still half closed and he was so hard he thought he might burst from that alone. She tugged his shoulder, trying to offer what he hadn’t yet taken, he could see in her eyes how badly she wanted him inside her, how she thought that was wrong of her – and given her earlier behavior he didn’t think that had anything to do with the adultery. If her husband hadn’t seen fit to glorify in her enjoyment, he wasn’t about to miss the opportunity.

He kissed her gently, lovingly, and rolled her to lie on top of him. He wanted her to guide this, wanted their first time to be hers, and when he reached for the rubber he’d stashed in the bedside table he was only half surprised when her hand came out as if to stop him. 

“Sam?” He asked softly. “What do you want?”

“I…” she hesitated, chewing her lip. Her hair was wild about her head, a glorious mass of red that maked a hallow around her as she answered, blushing crimson. “I want to feel you, Christopher. I know it’s risky…”

He put the little packet down and rose up to kiss her, brushing those magnificent curls back off her face. “If we had a child, Sam, I’d love them as much as circumstances allow. If I can’t give you anything else, perhaps I can give you that. I thought perhaps you might… want that.” He finished, feeling himself blush. He’d told her about his other son, in hushed whispers, and while he’s aged considerably since his wife’s death his virility has… never been in question. Rosalind had suffered terribly with miscarriages until they’d resigned themselves to contraceptives to spare her the pain of it, and he’d been prepared to only know Sam through the disheartening barrier of rubber, but he’d also been prepared for this – for her wanting that from him. He’s not sure how he’ll cope with watching another man raise his child, again, but for Sam he’d do it. Especially if it meant he could see her like this for however many tries it might take.

“Oh Christopher, I would happily.” She smiled at him and cupped his face back, her thin fingers running through his thinner hair. “But that’s hardly why I’m here you know. I love you, you silly man. And I know that those things aren’t exactly ideal for your comfort. And I do, I do want to feel you.” She blushed again. “I want to have you inside me properly, Christopher. I want to feel like I’m yours.”

It’s only due to years of firm self control that he didn’t flip them over and take her that second.

She was so impossibly improbably tight as she let him guide her down onto him– how could any man not crave this every second of every day? Her eyes were huge and round, her mouth slightly open, as she adjusted to him and he wondered for moment if he was larger than her husband – he’d certainly like to think so. He wanted this first time to be everything her very first time wasn’t, so he harnessed every ounce of his willpower to keep himself back. He let her shift on him, her tiny hesitant movements making it clear this was her first time in that position. Her small breasts, so perfectly high and pert, jiggled with every movement and he couldn’t help but thrust up into her just to make them bounce. She blushed and ducted her head, her movements stilling, and he had to reach up and lift her chin to make her look at him.

Keeping her chin raised with one hand, he held her eyes and used his other hand to guide her hips back into movement. He smiled up at her, biting his own lip slightly to try and keep as still as he could. When she seemed to get the encouragement she needed he let go of her and gave into the temptation of reaching for the delightfully tempting mounds in front of him.

Sam sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes falling closed and her head going back as he working her breasts gently, kneading in time with her slow rocking movements. Her little cries were starting again and he watched in raptured as she seemed to fall into the moment, finally taking what she needed. Her hand fluttered towards herself then fell away and he reached down to grasp it, placing it where she’d wanted it but been afraid to touch. Her little fingers explored where they were joined, touching herself and the base of him and he moaned, his hips jerking up towards her. She gave a started giggle this time, her eyes catching his again, her apprehension starting to dispel as he made it clear with his ever action that she was allowed this.

Finally he couldn’t stand it anymore and with tug he rolled them so he was on top and thrust back into her harder than he’d intended. Sam gasped and clutched his shoulders but the smile never faltered. Eventually her hips caught his movements and she matched him, rising to deepen each thrust, her heels dragging into the thin mattress. She startled when he reached for one leg and pulled it up onto his shoulder and then she understand and she made a sound like a wounded animal as he found a new place to press inside her.

He so wished for his lost youth, so that he could do this forever, or at least repeat it in an hour, but he was sweating and out of breath and by the time she finally broke around him, he shuddered into her with something close to relief. 

He pulled her into his arms and rolled them back as they had been so he can soften inside her slowly without crushing her. He liked having her on top of him even if it’s just to rest. Her tiny body seemed so delicate he was deathly afraid to hurt her, and it felt like he could keep her safe splayed out on top of him, wrapped in his arms. She blew a piece of her hair out her face and grinned at him, that wide and happy grin that she saved for jam and particularly inquiring murders and he loved her unreservedly.


	3. Sunday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the end of this one and a hope it meets your approval. :)

Sam brightened in the following weeks to the point that at least to Christopher she glowed. Now that she’d been given permission to enjoy intimacy it seemed she was born to it, and their stolen moments were now filled with the laughter and lighthearted enthusiasm he’d have expected from her. It broke his heart that she’d spent an entire year of marriage, after waiting so long to experience such a thing, in a state of shame and enforced passivity. Her husband was certainly an idiot of the highest order, Christopher thought, to not have encouraged her every whim rather than stifle her into a near paralysis.

There was a bounce in her step now, a twinkle in her eye, a kind of assurance and brashness that he’d suspected she’d always had but kept safely locked away. She was a woman, not the girl he’d known in Hasting at the start of the war, and certainly not the ghost he’d found in London when he’d first arrived. She danced to imagined music when no one was looking, she hummed and sang under her breath as she worked. Her comfort with herself made her twice as good at everything she did, or perhaps he was just seeing everything she touched now with a new and gloriously warped filter.

He’d heard some of the women in the office speculating she was with child. Which, given the radiance she was projecting seemed a good guess. However, he knew her courses had come the week before despite their lack of protection over the previous month. Sam had been both relieved and disappointed and he understood her feelings. The idea of her swelling with a child, his child, did things to him he really shouldn’t feel at his age. But knowing it wasn’t his home she had to return to in the evenings, wasn’t his bed she’d sleep in, and it wasn’t _his name_ the babe would bear made it just as well. 

Her husband’s political career would suffer when this was all out in the open. And perhaps he should feel guilty for that. Sam certainly would. But Christopher found he couldn’t spare a thought for the ruddy bastard. 

Adam Wainwright had had Sam all to himself for over a year and done nothing with her but make a concerted effort to drown her in guilt and housework. Christopher Foyle wasn’t about to waste his opportunity.

Their second month of clandestine interludes went the same as the first. Their work, however, was beginning to drag on both of them. The heady rush of working in secret was now just an inconvenience, something that kept him from having a real conversation with his son, and kept Sam from breaking it off with Adam, and kept them both from retreating back to Hastings. 

Something had to give and he wasn’t going to be the one to suggest what that something was. He’d be perfectly happy to pack her off for the coast and a life of picnics at the riverside and tea in the parlor. But she was young, so very young, with so much life to live. It would have to be Sam who chose the course. And Sam would wilt with that kind of inactivity. 

The opening was an unexpected thing. There were very few women officers outside of London, and even with the restriction lifted on married women it was rare to find one working in the Force. He’d put a word in for her, back before the war had even ended, on the off chance and now….

A new program was starting, to try and get at least one female officer in every district. The powers that be reasoned more women might come forward if there was a lady to talk to, both as victims and witnesses. A rash of complaints of improper conduct while questioning female suspects was also a sound reason to bring more lady officers on board but Foyle knew that they’d never admit to that. Regardless, the Hastings PD had an opening for a lady officer and Sam’s name had been floated by the station as soon as they’d heard it was a possibility.

Sam was delighted.

Adam put his foot down that it was impossible. His position was in London – he couldn’t up and move back to Hastings! He was elected official and had a duty to preform.

Sam kept her head, but not her ring, and with one worn case she moved out of her husband’s house within an hour of receiving the invitation to join the police. Her resignation with the agency followed shortly after and while she’d been wise enough not to announce to one and all their relationship by moving into his apartment she had easily arranged to rent the empty room below his. 

Training was in London, and went quickly. Christopher met her for lunch when their schedules allowed. His new secretary was a skittish thing that he complained about with his look every time Sam asked and the few stories he could share of his attempts to get her to do more than type forms had made Sam laugh. Without her the job held zero appeal and as soon as he could he had every intention of resigning. If the entirety of the country couldn’t offer up at least one person capable of replacing him than he wasn’t sure how they’d won the war.

The divorce made headlines when it came and the police weren’t particularly pleased that one of their new recruits was already making the papers for something less than stellar. Adam had chosen not to fight the divorce, had in fact had some part in speeding it along; the general consensus being that she’d left him due to selfishness and a too free spirit. But Sam held her own against the nay sayers and even when a reporter came sniffing around to ask him questions they stayed the course. Her parents had been expectedly cool about her choices, and Christopher suspected there was considerable ill feeling from most of her family towards her, but Sam bore all of it with her head high and her shoulders back. If anything the negative press and chatter made her more determined and when her scores came in the last round of tests she’d made best in class, even toping the males.

He quit a week before she was set to leave London to make sure the house was ready. Andrew came around to help repaint the downstairs and took the news fairly well considering. “Dad, you old dog. How long has this been going on then?” Had been his only response. 

Christopher met her at the train station. Her uniform was blue, the cut a little more flattering than the old MPC version, and she looked so completely at home in it he couldn’t help but smile. They didn’t pretend at all after that.

Her parents wrote horrible letters she burned.

Charles called and laughed at him on the phone.

Andrew sent a bottle a wine. 

Her uncle Aubrey came by in person and after staring at them for several long moments actually told them they were well matched. 

Milner collected a good sized prize from the office pool.

Sam merged back into the Force like she’d never really left it, and the increase in her responsibilities now that she was officially a member fairly made her bounce with excitement. Christopher’s only regret was that he was too realistic and as Sam grew as an officer he doubted she’d stay as happy as she was now. Her mind was too active for the drudgery of the lower ranks and her talent for the work that would normally have meant promotions and eventually achieving a detective rank would be overlooked because of her gender.

After the required wait they married – more to gain Sam the respectability she needed for her position than any actual desire for the public acknowledgement. A year passed, then two. Christopher was called in occasionally to consult on a case, which kept him from boredom. Sam excelled at her work, as usual, but there was a growing weariness to her eyes.

“You don’t have to stay.” He finally said after dinner as they sat in the living room. He’d made an Italian fish dish he knew she liked in the hopes it would increase her likelihood of hearing him out. “in the Force I mean.” He added when she looked up at him startled. “We both know they aren’t using you to your full abilities.”

Sam put down her knitting and rubbed tiredly at her eyes. “There isn’t anyone who would. At least they know me here, know you. I get a great deal more respect than I would if I’d transferred to another precinct.”

“True. But you could return to London, perhaps a spot with one of the new agencies?”

Sam smiled, a little strained. “Chris, I hated London. I hated the noise and the dirt and the agency – they want dashing spies and sultry undercover agents. I’m much better suited to detective work and we both know it. If they’d just stop thinking of us women police officers as somehow inherently dull witted I’d be fine. I’m just a little tired of babysitting prostitutes is all.”

“I believe it’s more to do with a desire to protect the fairer sex.” He smirked slightly as he said it, so she’d know he had no illusions to her being unable to take care of herself. She’d proven time and again in their years of association that she was better equipped to deal with most situations than many of his male officers. 

She stabbed at her knitting angrily. “I’d be safer investigating a murder than I am staking out brothels. Honestly, why do they care so much anyway. Nothing we do is ever going to get rid of that trade. The girls rarely do any harm. In fact they are usually the victims!” She put down her knitting and her eyes misted over. “I’m so tired, Chris. I just… I just want to be _useful_.” Her hand fluttered near her middle before dropping to her lap.

In the three years they’d been together they’d never bothered with protection and they’d had no sign of a child. Doctors had been consulted and tests run and while they finally figured out that there was something not right in her ovaries, the cause was a mystery to the professionals. It didn’t help that her anthrax exposure and the radiation scare in London were both still classified. They both suspected it was one or the other, or perhaps even the combination, that had caused her infertility. In practical terms it didn’t matter. Sam wasn’t ever going to have a baby and the silent knowledge that one day he’d die and leave her alone, without even that comfort, was a weight on them both.

Work was the only thing that seemed to help her with her grief but it was growing tiresome. The new chief inspector had little regard for WPCs and while the general ranks remembered Sam, respected her, she wasn’t being called in for much of anything important. 

“Your usefulness is never in question.” He stated firmly. “You are quite possibly the most useful person in all of England, and I mean that.” He paused and thought his next words out carefully. “You have all the makings of a top detective even if those ruddy paper-pushers won’t see it. And you’ve done everything from organize military intelligence files to assist a scientist and an artist and – Sam, you have lived more in your short years than most people do in a lifetime and you’ve succeeded at everything you’ve ever tried to do.”

“Except type. I’m rubbish on a typewriter.” Sam grinned ruefully. “And well, there’s that whole motherhood business. I’ve yet to figure that one out.”

He shook his head. “Rabbits spit out babies by the dozen, Sam. That’s not talent, it’s biology. If you wanted to raise children I dare say there wouldn’t be a better mother in the entire parish. And if that’s what you want we can adopt a half dozen tomorrow.”

She laughed and then caught the expression on his face. “You’re serious?”

“If that’s what you want, Sam, than that’s what we’ll do.” He reached over and took her hand. “I’ll even make the entire coast go insane and stay home with them while you go off to work if it would make you happy.”

“Oh!” Sam smacked him lightly. “You would too and probably enjoy it; corrupting all the little ones with endless fishing.” Her smiled faltered. “But that’s not really what I want, Chris. If I’m honest it’s just that it’s something so simple, that everyone else does without much effort at all apparently, and I can’t.” She let a tiny smirk quirk the corner of her mouth. “And I imagine we try quite a deal more than most.”

He ignored the attempt at levity in favor of the original subject. “What do you want? You aren’t happy and I would move heaven and earth to make you that way if I could. I just don’t know what will do it.”

“I don’t either.” Sam sighed and stood up to move closer to him on the sofa. “If I did, I’d do it. I’m just so tired of being taken for granted. You never treated me like I was incapable of something. You tried to protect me more than you ought,” She glared in mock indignation making him chuckle, “but you never held me back. I love being a police officer but I just wish… I wish I was a police officer and not an WPC, I suppose. And there in is the rub. They’ll never give up the farce that there’s a difference.”

He pulled her close. “Oh, I wouldn’t say never. After all it wasn’t that long ago they wouldn’t even let married women into service. Times do change, Sam.”

“It’ll take another world war and a good few decades and that’s just not something I’m willing to wait for.” Sam put her head on his shoulder. “It’s like everything I want do with my life is a battle. It was a battle to join the MPC and leave my parent’s house. It was a battle to get to stay your driver. Then it was a battle to be more than secrecy at the agency and then a battle to get the divorce… The only thing that seems to come without a fight is us.”

He was quiet for a long time. “Then you won’t wait. We’ll fight for your promotion. We’ll give them no choice in the matter.” He hugged her tightly. “We made it through the war, Sam. If we defeated Nazis I’m sure we can defeat the bureaucracy of one police department.”

She sighed into his shoulder. “Exactly how much blackmail material have you been collecting on them when I’m work?”

He smiled tightly. “Oh, I think I might have enough for detective constable to start. DS with a little time.”

“WDS.” Sam sighed. “Well, I can’t change the world in one day, can I?”

“That’s the spirit.” He kissed the top of her head. “Now, which of the bastards is giving you the most trouble? Weaverly has been cheating on his wife with his daughter’s best friend who is, by the way, only 15. And Martin, I’m fairly certain, stole a good portion of the 5th Street bust’s cash from the evidence locker and changed the log.”

Sam pulled away. “Are you serious?”

“You are the one who told me Weaverly was acting strange and had too intimidate of knowledge about the Chesterfield hotel. And you were the one who made a note of the evidence discrepancy and reported it to the DCI.” Christopher bit his cheek. “Fishing got a little dull so I may have made a few discrete inquiries…”

“I had been joking about the blackmail.” Sam chuckled. “But I suppose turning Martin into the DCI along with the evidence might make a start, assuming entire lot of them don’t mark me down as a rat.”

“Considering he set up Hillforge to take the fall if anyone looked, I think they might be grateful. You said yourself, no one likes Martin and Hillforge’s wife just had their third son. Particularly cruel of Martin.”

Sam nodded. “Right. Walk me through it.” She perked up immediately. “What did you find?”

Chris smiled and pulled out his notebook. “Well, it’s quite a sorted little affair are you sure?” Some things never changed.


End file.
